The feelings of sadness with which we look back on September 11, 2001, have shifted focus over the last five years. The attacks are acquiring the aura of inevitability that comes with being part of history.

We can argue about what one president or another might have done to head them off, but we cannot imagine a world in which they never happened, any more than we can imagine what we would be like today if the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbour.

Listing the sins of the Bush administration may help to clarify how we got here, but it will not get us out. The country still hungers for something better, for evidence that our leaders also believe in ideas larger than their own political advancement.

Over the last week, the White House has been warning the country what awful things would happen in Iraq if US troops left, while his critics have pointed out how impossible the current situation is. They are almost certainly both right. But unless people on both sides are willing to come up with a plan that acknowledges both truths and accepts the risk of making real-world proposals, we will be stuck in the same place forever. If that kind of coming together happened today, we could look back on September 11, 2006, as more than a day for recalling bad memories and lost chances. — The New York Times